


Waiting On The World To Change

by queenofkadara



Series: Banal'halam: Solas & Elia Lavellan [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Smut, Solas talking nerdy again because I'm a huge Fade fangirl, Solas's sad and angsty POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 05:03:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14585559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenofkadara/pseuds/queenofkadara
Summary: Solas has spent his life waiting in one way or another. Waiting, he thinks, is a strange thing: it is the practice of patience, the act of doing something by doing nothing at all. He has spent so much time waiting that the act of it barely hurts anymore.And yet, in the midst of this tranquil world, there is a new kind of waiting and a new kind of pain: he waits for the moment that Elia Lavellan tires of his shrouded heart.******************Gentle Solavellan angst and sex from our beloved Sad Egg's POV.





	Waiting On The World To Change

**Author's Note:**

> An enormous, smothering hug to the illustrious and nefarious Kitzie for your help with this chapter! I love you to the Fade and back, ma vhenan. xoxoxo

Time is a strange thing.

He remembers an era when time did not matter. Decades could pass in the blink of an eye, but this was inconsequential, for the ages stretched forth in an infinite river that would never run dry. 

Now, time is a stubborn and mercurial beast. In moments that he wishes to linger, he blinks, and those moments are forever gone. During other moments, time seems stuck in stasis when he wishes it would move. 

Solas has spent his life waiting in one way or another. Waiting, he thinks, is another strange thing: it is the practice of patience, the act of doing something by doing nothing at all. 

Some of that waiting happened long ago. For time uncounted he watched and waited until Mythal called him to her side. In their battle against the other Evanuris he hid and waited, biding his time for the right moments to strike. When their losses became too great and their rebellion not great enough, he waited as long as he could before striking that final, fateful blow and holding back the sky. 

He hasn’t yet decided if uthenera counted as waiting; the times when he walks the Fade in dreams are still the times that feel most real. But when he woke, it was as if to a nightmare. He knows he shouldn’t be shocked at what he’s found: a world where magic is accessible only by those few who can draw from the Fade like pulling water through pinpricks. He should expect nothing more after what he’s done. But how can he not be disgusted to wake to a world just as divided as the one he sought to heal?

Now, as he has done countless times before, Solas waits: he waits for the Inquisition to gain enough power to face Corypheus, and to take back his orb. He has had much practice at waiting - so much so that the act of it barely hurts anymore. Or perhaps he has grown accustomed to the pain so it no longer bothers him, like a callus to the soul. 

And yet, in the midst of this tranquil world, there is a new kind of waiting and a new kind of pain: he waits for the moment that Elia tires of his shrouded heart. 

Solas does not regret his joining with Elia. He of all people knows there is little use in regretting that which has been done. And no matter how selfish it might be, he cannot be sorry that he gave in to her affections. His Dalish lover is a particular brand of veilfire, burning away shadows and revealing facets of this world that he didn’t see in the year before they met. She is a symbol of hope he did not expect to find; her mind is open and flexible, juggling myriad possibilities and considering them all without preconception. It is her openness that first drew him, but it is this openness - this curiosity, this desire to learn and to _know_ \- that will also drive her away from him. 

It is for the best. Elia _should_ leave him. He walks the dinan’shiral, and it is a path he must walk alone. It will hurt her less if she leaves him of her own volition. And the sooner she cuts her ties with him, the less _he_ will hurt when the time comes to do what must be done. 

The flaws are there already, fine fissures that will widen as time goes on. Every time she asks a question he cannot answer, he watches as her lips thin with annoyance. He waits for her to press him, to demand clarification, but this is not Elia’s way. She does not plow into conflict headfirst; she considers her options and attacks from a careful position of greater power. Her strength is not shown in flashy displays of ferocity; she is patient, killing with a kindness that makes Josephine and Leliana proud. And yet she is quiet and unassuming, a subtle knife in the shadows. If not for her fame, Solas suspects nobody would look at her twice. 

Elia is like him. She forgives his recalcitrance, then she bides her time and waits. And this is what makes her so dangerous. 

He can feel her wearing him down with every night they spend together. She asks him her unending questions, her turquoise eyes filling with wonder as he tells of his explorations in the Fade, and he aches to tell her more. Elia bleeds into him like wine into fine linen, like riverwater wearing into granite, eating through the barriers he built around himself. She’s a slow arrow in her own right, aiming straight at his thinly veiled heart. 

But even the slowest of arrows cannot be allowed to impede the Dread Wolf's path.

And so Solas waits for that bitter but necessary moment: the moment when his secrets pile too high for her love to overcome. Sooner or later, she will cut her losses and leave him alone, and it will be as it should. She will save her heart from him, and in so doing, he will be saved from her as well. 

“Solas?”

“Mm?” He blinks, pulling himself from his grim reverie to focus on her face. She lounges on her side in bed, her chin propped on one delicate fist as she looks up at him. Her aquamarine eyes are bright, and he smiles fondly despite the lingering ache in his chest. He knows this look on her face, so he closes his book and waits.

Elia doesn’t disappoint. “I was just thinking about Cole, and how he can hear people’s thoughts. Do spirits understand every language?” She stops and tugs her bangs with a frown. “Does that question make sense? I…” 

Solas gently brushes her hair back from her forehead. “I understand what you ask. And the answer is… no and yes.” She grins at him, and he smiles back; so many of his answers about the Fade start in this equivocal manner, as she well knows. “Spirits do not simply hear the thoughts of the living. It is more akin to seeing and listening and reading all at once. Whatever form our thoughts might take - images, phrases, meanings, layers beneath layers of meanings of which the conscious mind is not fully aware… Spirits absorb it all. As such, they can understand the thoughts of any thinking being, regardless of the language they speak.” 

Her eyes are wide and brilliant, and he fancies he could drown himself in them. “Wow,” she breathes. “To have such a talent… would it be a blessing or a curse, I wonder?”

He drops his gaze to his closed book and idly wipes the cover with his fingers. “It is the way of spirits. They do not question it; it is how they perceive the world. They know no other way.” 

Elia murmurs a quiet acknowledgement. “What about _speaking_ languages, then? Can spirits speak every language?”

She shifts up in the bed to rest her head against his bare chest, and he savours her comforting heat and wraps his arm around her shoulders. “Spirits wish to join the living, and they reflect that which is projected into the Fade by the dreaming mind. Thus, a spirit reflects the languages around them. That is why Cole speaks the common tongue. Theoretically, a spirit _could_ speak any language; they can move throughout the Fade, meeting dreamers speaking myriad tongues, so… yes. A spirit could, in theory, speak every language.” 

That swift, breathtaking grin lights her face again. “Ah, a concrete answer. Who are you, and what have you done with Solas?” 

It is a jest, but his heart quails all the same at her unintentional double-meaning. He manages a tiny half-smile as she asks another question. “I’ve heard Cole speaking Elvhen to you, as well,” she says. She glances up at him. “Do you think Cole was around during the time of Arlathan? Or did he learn from watching the Dalish?” 

“I am uncertain,” Solas replies carefully. “I am not sure whether even Cole could say. Time means little for most spirits unless their purpose is tied to its passage in some way. Cole and his need to help… That is a wish that is unbounded by time. We may never know how old he is.”

Elia is silent for a long time, and Solas slowly draws his fingertips along the length of her back. Just as he thinks she has fallen asleep, she speaks again, but this time her voice is hesitant and low. “Solas… how old are you?”

His fingers grow still on her skin. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, the way you talk to Cole and Sera, I suppose. You called Sera ‘child’ when we walked in the Fade at Adamant. And Cole… you look after him. You teach him and guide him like a younger brother, but surely he’s older than you.” She shifts away to look him in the face, and there it is: her familiar shrewd look, her eyes sharp and her head tilted like a sparrow about to peck. “It’s not that odd a question. You know how old I am, after all.” 

“Age is not important, vhenan,” he says weakly. His dissembling is unskilled tonight, and Elia knows it; her eyes narrow like a cat’s, and she sits up and shrugs off the sheets. She slides to the edge of the bed and reaches for her thin cotton shift. “It’s a simple question, Solas,” she says quietly, but a note of steel has entered her tone. “This is not a no-and-yes situation. You can just tell me, you know.”

He watches as her skin disappears beneath her nightdress. He should let her slip away. This could be the moment he was waiting for. A seemingly innocuous question could be the downfall he was both hoping for and dreading. 

His hand snaps out before he has time to think, and he captures her fingers before she can leave the bed. “Elia. Listen to me,” he says. “Your age does not interest me. What interests me most is your mind. Your intelligence, your thoughtfulness, the intentions with which you act and the purpose that drives you forth. I care what’s in your heart, not the number of years you’ve walked this world. I would hope it is the same for you.”

She is silent, her face turned away, and he waits on tenterhooks for her response. When she finally sighs and squeezes his fingers in return, he can’t decide whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

She turns to face him, and though she frowns still, her lips are curved in a wry half-smirk. “When you put it that way, it makes me sound petty.” 

He pulls gently on her hand, and she gives in and slides toward him. He pushes his book aside and guides her onto his lap. “You are not petty,” he says softly. He hates lying to her, so he tells a version of the truth. “I do not wish you to be disappointed if I tell you my age. I am older than I appear.” _An understatement if ever one was told,_ he thinks with a wry twist of sadness. 

He slowly slides his palms along her thighs, then gives her a tiny smirk to hide his anguish. “An ‘unwashed apostate’ I might be, but I take care to shield myself from the aging effects of the sun during my travels. I’m sure our Madame de Fer would approve of that, if nothing else.” 

Elia huffs in amusement at his poke at Vivienne, but doesn’t drop the subject as he hoped. “How can you think I would be disappointed?” she asks. “Age is just a number. It won’t change how I feel.” 

Her hands cradle his neck, her thumbs a soothing stroke along his jaw, but he steels himself against the sweet poison of her acceptance. She thinks he’s concealing a decade, perhaps two. She has no idea of the millenia that lapse between them. It’s a secret he absolutely cannot share. 

“Let an older man keep some of his pride, vhenan,” he pleads softly. With one finger he eases the strap of her shift from her shoulder, then braises her bare collarbone with a kiss. 

She tilts her head back, exposing the slender line of her throat, and he takes full advantage to trace its length with his tongue. He gently gathers the fabric of her shift in his hands, then pulls the nightdress over her head as she obligingly lifts her arms. 

She’s bare beneath the shift, candlelight gleaming on the dusky peaks of her breasts and the raven curls between her legs, and he drinks in her beauty with a mixture of desire and angst.

She reaches for his breeches and smiles as she runs her hand over the hardness of his groin. “You are not so old, my love,” she purrs.

Her voice is sultry and insidiously persuasive, and Solas can’t reply lest he cave to her charms. He draws her close with one hand on her neck and silences her clever lips with a kiss. 

Her fingers are nimble on the laces of his breeches, her hands confident as they tug the garment from his hips. He relaxes against the head of the bed as she rises above him, her hands braced on his shoulders as she slides her inviting heat against the length of his shaft. 

He inhales sharply through his nose. She is hot and slick and exquisite, and he sculpts his palms over the roundness of her bottom to pull the cradle of her hips more firmly against his own. Her lips flush a deep pink as she undulates against him, tiny gasps pulling from her throat as his shaft rubs against the tiny button of her pleasure. Abruptly she lifts her hips, her hand a quick flash between their bodies as she grabs his cock, and he gasps with surprise and pleasure as she sinks onto his length in one fell stroke. 

Her breath is hot against his cheekbone. “Touch me,” she whispers. 

She leans back, and he eagerly complies with her demand, sliding the knuckle of his index finger lightly over her clit. The touch is gentle and indirect, and it’s exactly what Elia wants; a beautiful keen of pleasure escapes her lips as she grinds onto him in a slow, firm circle. “Don’t stop,” she whimpers. 

Thoughts and feelings of _I’ll never stop_ flit through his mind, but he clenches his jaw to prevent their escape. They are vicious thoughts, ones he can never release because they can never be true. He pushes them ruthlessly aside as he strokes her swollen bud. He watches the rhythm of her body with the instincts of a predator: the speed of her grinding, the beating of the pulse in her throat, the sound of her breaths. When she slows in her grinding, her abs going taut as she holds her breath, he knows she is close, and he reaches up and palms her breast with his other hand.

She jerks against his palm as he smoothes his thumb over her nipple, then pinches its tender peak. “S-Solas...” she whimpers, then releases a guttural cry as her climax rips through her with a shudder. 

He watches in adoration and despair as she arches and drags her nails across her own belly in rapture. He knows what her next request will be, and it’s a request he is always happy to fulfill. He can’t give her the answers she seeks, but he can give her this. 

Before she has time to ask, he takes firm hold of her hips and pulls her against him in a deep, fast rhythm. Her cry of affirmation is soothing, a reassurance that he is doing something right by her, and he gasps in tandem with her as his inevitable release rises. 

“Solas, don’t stop,” she begs, a sob of pleasure shivering in her voice, and he can’t help but make a tiny promise this time. “I won’t,” he whispers. 

Her nails gouge furrows into his arms, her petite breasts bobbing against his cheek as he fucks her hard and sweet, and when they burst together she bites his shoulder hard, lacing his pleasure with a delicate sprinkling of pain. 

She presses her forehead to his neck and hooks one arm around his neck as they gasp for breath. He holds her close in kind, wrapping his arms around her and holding her flush to the damp heat of his chest. 

Long, languid minutes pass as he inhales her scent, and he’s thankful that time has deigned to slow down for once. Elia nuzzles his cheek, the tip of her nose gently stroking his skin, and he allows himself to relax into the weight of her.

She brushes her lips against his ear. “You can tell me anything, Solas. You don’t have to hide from me.”

He swallows hard and buries his face in her neck. Elia is the broadest mind he’s met in this world. She weighs possibilities and perspectives, and she contemplates and considers every angle, and she’s decided that forgiving him for now is the best course of action to get the answers she seeks.

She’s wrong. He clutches her pliant body close and struggles for a response. He does not wish to lie, but he cannot offer her the truth. So he tells her a different truth instead, a truth that he already knows will last forever, if nothing else does.

Solas cups her neck in his hand and kisses her cheekbone. “Ar lath ma, vhenan,” he whispers.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to talk Sad Egg with me, I am [Pikapeppa on Tumblr!](https://pikapeppa.tumblr.com/) xo


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